ELEPHANT 125 



African tree-hyrax (P. arborea), a native of eastern Africa south of the Zambesi, 

 has a shorter head than the others, and is dark grey in colour, with the hairs 

 blackish brown at their bases. Numerous other species have been described, one 

 of which inhabits the Algerian Sahara. 



Tree-hyraxes have the habit of hunching up their backs into the form of 

 a high arch, which gives them a most peculiar appearance when at rest. As a 

 rhinoceros-like foot is not very well adapted for holding on to smooth surfaces of 

 rocks or the bark of trees, these animals have the power of elevating the centre 

 of the sole so as to form a sucker, and are thereby enabled to clamber or climb 

 about in either situation with facility. 



As already mentioned in an earlier chapter, extinct generic types of hyraxes, 

 some of the species of which were of large size, occur in the lower Tertiary 

 formations of the Fayum district, thereby indicating that Africa was the birthplace 

 of the group. 



The " coney " was prohibited as food to the Hebrews of Biblical times. 

 Whether the presence of the dorsal gland had anything to do with the prohibition 

 of " coney "-meat as an article of diet, it is impossible now to say. The ostensible 

 reason of the prohibition was that the "coney," like the hare, chewed the cud 

 without " dividing the hoof." As a matter of fact, neither the hyrax nor the hare 

 really chews the cud — a function which is strictly confined to ruminants. Never- 

 theless, the peculiar movements of the lower jaw and lips of both animals 

 when feeding might readily convey the idea to non-scientific observers that 

 they really ruminate. 



Largest of living quadrupeds, the African elephant (Elephas 

 africanus) is one of the two living representatives of the Probos- 

 cidean suborder of Ungulata ; a group which, in past times, had a number of 

 representatives and ranged over the greater part of the world, including Siberia 

 and North and South America. The group has a most interesting past history. 

 Originating in Egypt and the neighbouring districts, it was represented in the 

 earlier strata of the Tertiary period by a primitive species of the size of a tapir, 

 which lacked a trunk and-most of the features which we commonly regard as 

 characteristic of elephants, but which was, nevertheless, unmistakably an ancestral 

 elephant. From this ancestor, through an intermediate form, was developed the 

 earliest mastodon, a small, primitive elephant with tusks in each jaw, and a long, 

 trough-like lower jaw and lips to support the elongated and trunk-like muzzle. 

 From Africa these mastodons migrated into Asia, where the true elephants appear 

 to have been developed, and whence the immediate progenitor of the existing 

 African species returned to the land of its earliest ancestors. 



From its Asiatic cousin (E. maximus) the African elephant is distinguishable 

 at a glance by several external features, notably the much larger size of the ears, 

 which in some of the numerous local races completely cover the shoulders, and 

 when the animals are excited stand erect so as to produce a most remarkable 

 appearance. When in repose they lie flat on the neck and shoulders. The trunk, 

 too, is of a different type of structure, looking as though made in segments of 

 different calibre, instead of forming an evenly tapering smooth tube. Then, again, 

 the tip of the trunk has a finger-like process on both its upper and lower margins, 



